3 months earlier, I had no Marketing cloud experience, I moved to an official Salesforce Marketing Cloud partner company, so this certification was on cards since then.

Even before I joined, I started my learning process. It took me 2 months to prepare for this certification as a complete newbie to Marketing Cloud. The exam wasn’t easy for me (though many say it is the easiest exam) as I didn’t have full-time hands-on experience of working on Marketing Cloud project while attempting this certification.

Breakdown of Score

Before I talk about how I prepared for this certification here’s a breakdown of how much I scored on the exam.

Since we know the topics from the certification guide (column #1) and the % of weight for each topic (column #2), I calculated the expected number of questions for each topic (column #3) out of 60 questions. Salesforce sent my topic wise scoring via email that I secured after the exam (Column #4), so I calculated how many questions I got them right (column #5).

Topic

% of Weightage (from the guide)

Expected No. of Questions

My Exam Result in %

No. of Correct Answers

Content Creation and Email Delivery

18%

11

90.90%

10

Tracking and Reporting

6%

4

75.00%

3

Marketing Automation

19%

11

81.81%

9

Email Marketing Best Practices

15%

9

88.88%

8

Email Message Design

13%

8

37.50%

3

Subscriber Data and Management

29%

17

76.47%

13

60

46

In total, I got 46 answers correct out of 60 – that is 76.67%. Not bad. Pass!!

Topics & Weightage:First thing is to get acquainted with the topics from the Salesforce certification guide and have an understanding of how many questions you’d get from each topic. As mentioned in the above table, there are 6 Topics.

Reporting & Tracking is the lowest – Just 6%. So around 4 questions.

Subscriber Data Management is the highest – 29% – 17 questions.

The remaining 4 topics are between 13% to 19% – around 10 questions per each topic

Content Creation and Email Delivery (18%)

Marketing Automation (19%)

Email Marketing Best Practices (15%)

Email Message Design (13%)

Trailhead: Obviously I started the preparation with Trailhead. There are only 3 modules for Marketing Cloud (MC). Reading and understanding these 3 modules from Trailhead covers 15-18%of your certification.

Marketing Cloud Basics: This gives the right intro to what this is all about. This doesn’t cover any certification topics but just gives a general idea of the cloud.

Marketing Cloud Studios & Builders: This gives an intro to the tools of MC. Focus on the Email Studio part. Do not go deep into the Journey builder but this is a must-read. There are a couple of introductory questions on why or when Journey builder is used in the certification.

Email Marketing Strategies:The 3rd and the most important module This is very useful and covers the Email Marketing Best Practices topic of the certification (9-10 questions from this).

Update Feb 2018: 3 More Trailhead modules released for Marketing Cloud which helps in this certification

Official Salesforce Marketing Cloud Basics Youtube Playlist: Salesforce has an official Youtube channel specifically for Marketing Cloud, called “Marketing Cloud Official”. They have a special playlist named “Marketing Cloud Basics” where they talk about all the basics of Email Studio. This is very useful as the videos show the marketing cloud user interface while explaining the all the features of marketing cloud in detail. These are just 2-3 mins videos, 13 of them (to this day). So you should be able to complete them in an hour – This is fast-paced learning!

Read the Help Document:You can skip this step as this would not really help in certification directly at this stage. I preferred to do this as I wanted a deep knowledge and understanding of everything as eventually I know I’d work on MC. So, I chose the hard path. Salesforce provides the help documentation for marketing cloud. Go to the “Getting Started with Email Studio” topic from the left menu in the help documentation. For the next 10 days, I read through all of this, yes the entire of Email Studio documentation. Though not everything makes sense the first time, this will give you an idea of what’s in MC. I made notes for each topic, the things I feel are important to me. It didn’t help for the exam but from a learning perspective, it did.

Free Official Salesforce Online Training Courses: Salesforce provides free online training material. To get these, login to your any Developer Account (Not marketing cloud, your Sales cloud Developer account). If you don’t have a Developer account, you can sign-up here! This account is free for life. After logging in, go to Help (from upper right corner menu). Click on Training & Certification. And apply the filter ‘Marketing Cloud’. There are 9 courses available for free to study. These are some amazing content. (You can skip the Social Studio ones for this certification preparation.)

If you have Marketing Cloud account, you can log in to your Marketing Cloud Account and go through Help (from top right corner menu, after logging in) and get to the Training courses.

Free APAC Certification Preparation Webinars:Salesforce University (okay now it is merged with Trailhead, so need to refer to it as Trailhead also) has started conducting free certification preparation webinars for everyone. This is an initiative from the Asia Pacific (APAC) team of Salesforce University Trailhead, so these webinar timings are more suited to the Asia time zone. These preparation webinars are not just for Marketing Cloud, they do for all other Salesforce cloud certifications including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud. These are 5-hour sessions and is quite interactive. The instructor takes you through the certification topics, explains each topic, with a live demo, giving you tips to clear the certification. This webinar is purely for certification purposes. You can register for the upcoming webinars using this link. I keep updating this link as soon Salesforce releases the dates for next webinars. I cannot share this material with you as this is Private & Confidential.

It is important to make notes during the webinar as you won’t have access to it later.

After the webinar, do a review of what topics you need to study more. Refer to the Help document and go through those topics.

By this stage, you would cover the entire certification topics and should be almost ready for the exam in the next 2 weeks. The next 2 weeks you need to check mock exams and understand the question formats.

Sample questions from my exam:Are you ready for the exam? Let me check. I will list down the topics from which my questions were based on. If you think you can answer, you are ready. If not, don’t worry, just check the Help document to understand more on these topics (or write a comment on this post for any clarification).

Given a scenario, which one to use – Suppression List or Exclusion list?

Mock Tests:You can check for mock test available on the internet. Don’t completely rely on them, as the question formats are not completely in line with what you get in your exam and most of the answers in the mock tests are wrong. So, I’m not giving any links here for mock tests.

Tutorial Series: I have created a tutorial series specifically for this certification explaining all the concepts of Marketing Cloud.

Use the above URLs to get a special discount. Coupon Code INNERCIRCLE is added to them.

Feel free to comment if any clarification required on any topic or any question from the mock tests, I will provide the right answer.

Maintenance of Certification Credential

To maintain your Marketing Cloud Certification, you no longer need to pay 100$ and take that online yearly maintenance exam. It has been shifted to Trailhead, yes! Learn how to maintain your credential

A customer has a Send Log they are using to track the email addresses that were sent to, date and time of the send, and the name of the email sent for reporting purposes. Per best practice, the customer stores 30 days of data in their Send Log and then archives the data into another data
extension that holds data for one year.
Which activity should be used to achieve the backup automatically?
A. Import File
B. Data Extract
C. SQL Query
D. Filter
Answer: C

Which statement regarding editing an email template is true? (Choose 2)
A. Updating an email to reflect changes made in its template can be done in the email properties
B. Changes to a template cannot be made once it is saved in the application
C. Changes to a template are automatically inherited in emails built from that template
D. A template does not automatically affect emails created from that template
Answer : BD
Please Confirm!!

A marketer created dynamic content for an upcoming campaign that renders unique content based on subscribers attribute, the marketer would like to preview how each email are render for a given list of subscribers, how should do the marketer proceed
Options:
• create a user initiated email to send to the list of subscribers
• use the test send tool to trigger copies of the email
• select the preview tab within the classic content tool
• using the subscribers preview tool cycle through the list of subscribers

An event marketing team is setting a campaign to message customers who register for an event. The registration data is being gathered in another system and it will be passed over to marketing cloud dealing and updates made to the costumers registration information will be reflected in the same file how should the import of registration data be configured?
Options:
• Use the import activity to overwrite to records in the data extension
• To report activity to add new records into the data extension
• Use the import wizard to overwrite the records in the data extension.
• Use the import wizard to add new record into data extension

Hi @Zee, thank you so much for all the questions you are adding, and for helping everyone with answers!
For this one, I have a doubt. Are we going with A instead of C because the data is being gathered in another system, and therefore we suppose we are going to automate the process with an Import Activity?
Thanks!

3. What occurs in an Enterprise 2.0 account when a subscriber clicks the default “One-Click Unsubscribe” link in an email? Choose 2 answers
a. The subscriber is deleted completely from the sending account
b. The subscriber is removed from the List used for the Send
c. The subscriber is added to the enterprise global unsubscribe list
d. The subscriber is unsubscribed from the publication list applied to the send

2. An account has a Subscriber Key enabled, and will be providing a unique key for each subscriber from an external system. A marketer wants to create a data extension for sending email campaigns. What steps would the marketer take when creating the data extension? Choose 2 answers
a. Check the “Is Sendable” option
b. Set the column representing the Subscriber Key as a Primary Key
c. Set the Email address column as a Primary Key
d. Relate the Email address to the Suscriber Key

1. What is a capability of a data relationship?
a. Join data extensions together to filter or segment the fields from data extensions.
b. Join a list and a data extension to filter the combined data.
c. Join data extensions together to create one combined data extension
d. Join three or more data extensions together to create a filtered data extension.

A bank wants to send a series of emails to customers who open a new savings account. The first email is sent immediately after the account is opened to confirm the action. The second email is sent one day after the account is opened. The third email is sent five days after the account is opened only if the customer has not made a new deposit. The final email is sent ten days after the account has been opened and the customer still has not made a deposit, or eight days after the customer opened the account and made a deposit, but has not opened any emails. The data is stored in two data extensions. The bank has two versions of each email: English and Spanish. The bank wants to automate sending the emails. Which process could the bank use? Choose 2 answers
Options:
• Use Drag and Drop Segmentation to create data filters
• Use Query Activities
• Create a data relationship and a Measure, use Drag and Drop Segmentation to create data filters, and use Filter activities
• Use Drag and Drop Segmentation to create data filters, and the use Filter activities

When using a mobile-optimized template, what causes the mobile layout to display?
a. A subscriber attribute that dictates a mobile layout preference.
b. The screen size of the device that is used to view the email.
c. The email client detection tracking pixel.
d. The specific device that is used to view the email.

A small company, with limited resources, has started to use the Marketing Cloud. They have a single master data extension for all of their subscribers.
When a subscriber opts in to receive communications, they will receive a monthly newsletter, weekly promotions, and a birthday email. What is the optimal way to manage unsubscribes by communication type?
A. Create publications lists for each communication type, and associate the publication list with the email send in the user-initiated send definition
B. Create a profile attribute or data extension field for each communication type, and use a boolean value to capture subscriber status
C. Create suppression lists for each communication type, and associate the suppression list with the email in the user-initiated send definition
D. Create separate lists or data extensions for each communication type, and create a filter to segment subscribers into the applicable lists or data extensions
My choice: A. Please confirm.

Hi! I have a doubt on this question and I’m not certain from the answers I find online… Could anyone help?

A marketer for Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) needs to dynamically update the sender name and email address based on the sales representative associated with the account. The data is stored in two separate data extensions.
Which two tools should the marketer use?
(Choose 2 answers)

Which tactic will improve deliverability for a new sender?
A. Send email during the holiday season when new senders are less likely to be detected
B. Send email to a minimum of 35,000 subscribers per ISP per day
C. Send email to ISPs that have been notified of the new sender
D. Send email to the most active and engaged customers
Answer: D
Kindly Suggest!

The IT department at Northern Trail Outfitters would like to receive email notifications once an automation has completed. How should the automation be configured?
A. Select the IT users from the Notification Settings panel on the Overview page in Automation Studio.
B. Select and configure the Automation Studio Completion report from the Reports Catalog within the Reports application.
C. Navigate to the Automation’s Activity tab and enter a comma delimited list of IT staff in the Run Completion field.
D. Add a Send Email Activity to the end of the Automation workflow and configure it to send to a Subscriber list of IT staff.
My Ans: D, Please help me to confirm.

A marketer needs to create an attribute named Gender that has a drop-down menu with appropriate values in the Profile Center. How can this be accomplished? (Choose 2)
A.Create restricted values
B.Select the attribute as required
C.Select the data type as Text
D.Set a custom maximum length of six
My Ans: AB or AC. Please confirm.

Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) is currently sending out a single welcome email when a subscriber joins its myNTO Rewards program, NTO wants to test whether one, two, or three welcome email would result in a higher rate of conversion.
How can this be accomplished most efficiently?
A. Journey Builder using a Random Split with three branches
B. Automation Studio with three separate Welcome automations.
C. A series of A/B tests to determine the number of emails
D. Journey Builder using a Decision Split with three branches
My ans: A
Please confirm.

Hi @Chandra, I could be mistaken here, but I believe it’s simply because A/B testing would be less effective and more time consuming, whereas doing it through journey builder is automatic, and therefore would allow you to gain time.

This is the repeated question however noone has given the concrete answer, can someone help?
NTO wants to send promotional holiday emails to subscribers who have identified their favourite store locations. Which two actions should NTO take in order to utilize their subscribers’ location preferences? Choose 2 answers
A. A dynamic From Name that pulls in the store location (Answer)
B. A new delivery profile that pulls in store location in the footer
C. A From Name for each store location
D. A new send classification for holiday promotions (Answer
My Ans: A,D
Please confirm.

Hi! Does anyone have a final answer from this? Re-reading new articles and the help, I have a doubt about the answer D. Send classification is mainly for CAN SPAM stuff isn’t it? Like to inform the classification of your message (transnational or promotional).
So now I’m hesitating between D and B.

. A marketer send an email to a sendable data extension that contains a Customer_ID field with a numeric data type that relates to the subscriber key on the all subscriber list as a send relationship.
Which two statements are correct about the email send behaviour for any subscriber who currently does not exist on the all subscriber list?
1. The primary key and demographic data will be added to the All subscriber list.
2. The email address and subscriber key will be added to the all subscriber list.
3. If the customer_ID field does not exist on the all subscriber list, the email send will fail.
4. The subscriber will be added to the all subscriber list with a status of Active.
My Ans: 2,4
Manish, Kindly confirm.

The NTO email team is creating a reusable content block for its deals to run with campaign. NTO will cross-promote this campaign in other emails in single-column content area. This content will have one image, with text below it. How can the NTO email team create one content area and reuse it across other emails using content builder without writing any custom HTML?
A.
Create a text content block
B.
Create a free form content block
C.
Create an HTML content block
D.
Create an image content block

A marketer sends a re-engagement email to contacts who have not opened or clicked emails in the last month. This email contains a call-to-action (CTA) prompting the recipient to “Click here to keep receiving our emails.” In which two ways can the marketer determine who clicked on the CTA? Choose 2 answers
1.Select unique clicks on the overview tab in the inbox activity section
2.Select the click activity bar chart from the email overlay view of the click activity tab
3.Select the URL ID for the URL or tracking alias from the job links tab
4.Select the URL or tracking alias from the link view tab of the click activity tab

For me, answer one will give you the people who clicked on the email, but not on that particular CTA.
I agree with answer 2 because it’ll allow you to see the people who clicked on a particular link (so the link contained in the CTA).. And since the tracking alias was used in another question to check who clicked, etc…
My final answer would have been: 2 & 3. Does anyone know for sure?
Thanks a lot!

A marketer wants to send the same email with the same send properties in several automation. Which activity should be created within Automation studio?
1. Triggered send
2. Template send
3. Automated send
4. Send email
My Choice: 4
Manish, Will you please confirm when you will have a moment?

A digital marketing team noticed an increase in unsubscribes and would like to implement a mechanism as an alternative to unsubscribing from all sends. The team currently uses data extension for sending emails. Which tool should they use?
1. Suppression lists
2. Profile attributes
3. Publication lists
4. List unsubscribe

If you delete subscriber information from Email Studio, that deletion applies only to the Email Studio Channel. To fully delete all contact information from Marketing Cloud, delete the contact record in Contact Builder. But for GDPR you want the contact to be removed from everything.

1. An email Marketer has been tasked with increasing open rates on a weekly newsletter that currently uses a consistent, identifiable subject line: “NTO Weekly: Topics of interest this week.” Which two best practices should the marketer use to make the subject line more effective? Choose 2 answers
1. Keep the subject text between 50 and 100 characters long
2. Include “RE:”, “FWD:”, “etc.” To get the reader’s attention
3. A/B test the effectiveness of different subjects
4. Include information relevant to the message in the subject line
My choice: 3, 4

Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) uses link aliases within the HTML versions of its emails to indicate when clicks occurred, even if the same URL is used multiple times within a send. A marketing employee has been asked to pull the email addresses of all customers who clicked on the link associated with “Main Banner Top” in NTO’s most recent newsletter. Where can the marketer most easily find this information?
1. Tracking Job Links tab > URL ID
2. Tracking Overview tab > Clicks
3. Tracking Click Activity tab > Link View
4. Racking Click Activity tab > Email Overlay View

Actually, I think that in 2 you would only get the list of people who clicked on the email, without differentiating where they clicked. Whereas with option 3, I think you can go more into detail and see a list of the people that clicked on different URLs. I have doubts about the terminology though, so if @Manish could confirm, that would be great!

Hi, I don’t know if this can still help anyone, but having re-read articles and looked through screenshots of Marketing Cloud, I think the correct answer would actually be D.
Although with C you’ll see the clicks on this particular URL, you won’t necessarily know which URL corresponds to which part of the email.
With answer D however, you’ll be able to click on the % that is indicated right next to the main banner, and therefore be sure the link is actually the one present in this banner. That’s just my opinion though, I could be wrong!

Northern Trail Outfitters has a Master Customer shared data extension. The company wants to make the table available to some of the business units, but not all of them. How can access to the Master Customer table be restricted?
A.
Data Extension Sharing Rules

A local craft store is implementing the Marketing Cloud and will be using Lists to store their subscriber data. Which two types of data can subscribers easily update via the default Profile Center?
A.
Email Address

NTO launched a new custom preference center to allow customers to provide details annual their personal information such as age, gender, and outdoor sporting interests.
In which two ways should NTO honour customers preferences when creating emails?
1. Create a dynamic rule based on customer’s preferences in order to send specific content.
2. use AMPScript to dynamically pull in content associated with customer’s preferences.
3. Send customers one email per preference choice to ensure customer receives what they want?
4. Create emails to include all preference options so that customers do not miss any content.

A 15-person management team wants to review test emails built in Email Studio prior to live deployment based on content that is personalized for them, but is clearly noted as a test email. What is the safest, most effective way for a marketer to accomplish this task without compromising the email content?
A. Create a data extension composed of the management team, create a User-Initiated Send Definition, select the email, prepend “Test” to the Subject, select the data extension, and send the email.
B. Find each individual with Subscriber Preview and Test Send to each individual Recipient.
C. Create a list composed of the management team, prepend “Test” to the Subject, and use the Send Flow to send the email to the list.
D. Create a Test data extension composed of the management team and Test Send to the Test data
extension.
My choice is D.
Manish, please correct me if i am wrong.

55. NTO wants its emails to render uniquely between mobile and desktop devices. NTO would like the emails to be responsive. Which two techniques should be used? Choose 2 answers
A. Include @media query CSS in the email
B. Use a Basic, Empty or Themed Template in Content Builder
C. Use inline CSS styling on all HTML elements
D. Include style=”display:block” on all images

50. When deploying a send to its customers, a marketing team would like to send to its own team members also. However, the team does not want the team members’ open and click behavior to affect the
tracking metrics of the send.
Which two steps must be completed when creating the data extension to address this need? Choose 2
answers
A. Mark the “Is Testable” checkbox
B. Mark the “Is Sendable” checkbox
C. Define the Send Relationship by email address
D. Set the Email Address as the Primary Key

I would choose A and B as the answer. It should be Is Testable to send to test customers. Is sendable is a must to send emails to a DE. The question doesn’t talk about Email Address, so C and D are not answers.

36. Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) created several lists of subscribers, and would now like to send an email to all the females on the list.
Which feature allows NTO to easily target this segment?
A. List Detective
B. Publication List
C. Filtered Group
D. Smart Capture

12. A marketing team is using the Import Activity to import a csv file into a data extension. The file location is the system default File Location: Enhanced FTP. The import has failed and the error is “File NotFound.”
Which two steps should resolve the issue? Choose 2 answers
A. Ensure the name of the file in the Import Activity matches the file name on the FTP.
B. Use the Import Wizard to point to rename the file on the FTP.
C. Change the file format from “comma separated value” to “tab delimited.”
D. Ensure the file to be imported is in the Import Folder on the Enhanced FTP

Each time Northern Trail Outfitters sends its monthly promotional email, the volume of support calls
spike. The executive team would like the marketing team to slowly send emails throughout the day to
avoid customers waiting on hold.
Which feature should the marketing team use to achieve this?
A. Send Throttling
B. Send Email Activity
C. Triggered Send
D. Send Flow

57. A marketer for Northern Trail Outfitters needs to share multiple assets in Content Builder for a campaign with another business unit in their account.
How should the marketer share these assets?
A. Individually share each asset with the other business unit in Content Builder.
B. Move the content into the Shared Content folder in Content Builder.
C. Create and share a new folder for the assets in Content Builder.
D. Switch to Classic Content to move the assets into the Shared Content folder.

43.Distributed a newsletter to alumni, students, faculty, and prospective students. The university’s marketing team wants to see the results of the email campaign.
Which two items of information and data about the performance of an individual send can be exported from Tracking in Email Studio? Choose 2 answers
A. Performance data on the Overview tab
B. Images showing how the email rendered on different devices
C. Subscribers who click on a specific link
D. Number of clicks from mobile devices

38. A marketer has been tasked with ensuring Northern Trail Outfitters’ unsubscribe mechanisms are CANSPAM
compliant and follow industry best practices.
Which two criteria should the marketer incorporate into campaigns to ensure compliance and align with current best practices? Choose 2 answers
A. Include an unsubscribe link in the header or footer of emails.
B. Process every individual’s unsubscribe request within 14 business days.
C. Ensure opt-out mechanisms are operational for at least 30 days post-send.
D. Ask the subscriber to log in to the Preference Center to confirm opt-out.

37. Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) offers a 90-day trial on weekly snack box subscriptions. NTO would like to send out a series of emails to educate and remind members to purchase the subscription before the trial ends.
What tool is an option for this scenario?
A. Automation Studio
B. Content Builder
C. Guided Send
D. Send Flow

36. Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) created several lists of subscribers, and would now like to send an email to all the females on the list.
Which feature allows NTO to easily target this segment?
A. List Detective
B. Publication List
C. Filtered Group
D. Smart Capture

A new marketing manager at Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) has been asked to evaluate whether to use HTML Emails or Templates for weekly newsletter sends, which are created by a marketing coordinator with limited coding ability. While NTO has HTML developers on staff, their time is not guaranteed on an ongoing basis.
Which two characteristics of Templates would benefit NTO when creating its weekly newsletter in Content Builder? Choose 2 answers
A. Emails can be formatted for desktop and mobile without extra coding.
B. HTML developers are needed to build templates, but not emails.
C. One template can only be used for one email, maintaining brand standards.
D. Templates provide the ability to create email messages using content blocks.

14. A company has set out to increase their subscriber base. They hired a team of marketing consultants to develop an acquisition plan backed by data.
What are two effective methods to acquire new subscribers? Choose 2 answers
A. Create an in-store SMS campaign that offers a discount for opting in.
B. Require customers to provide their email address when calling customer service.
C. Have customers opt in to email before they can shop online.
D. Ask for an email address when a customer makes a purchase in-store.

26. A new marketing manager at Northern Trail Outfitters (NTO) has been asked to evaluate whether to useHTML Emails or Templates for weekly newsletter sends, which are created by a marketing coordinator with limited coding ability. While NTO has HTML developers on staff, their time is not guaranteed on an ongoing basis.
Which two characteristics of Templates would benefit NTO when creating its weekly newsletter in Content Builder? Choose 2 answers
A. Emails can be formatted for desktop and mobile without extra coding.
B. HTML developers are needed to build templates, but not emails.
C. One template can only be used for one email, maintaining brand standards.
D. Templates provide the ability to create email messages using content blocks.